Today’s readings on the Feast of the Holy Family offer advice for persons who make up the most basic unit of our society. They can help families discern the way in which the sage wisdom of Sirach can be applied to our own relationships as we examine the family dynamic of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
The Book of Sirach, written some time during the Second Century, BCE deals with several ordinary topics which we encounter in our daily lives. Some of these include the proper use of speech, generosity for the poor, conduct toward our neighbors, and prudence in business affairs. Today’s First Reading (Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14) deals specifically with duties of and responsibilities toward parents.
Parents are said to be set in honor and authority over their children. As such they are tasked with the duties that we associate with normal parenting – rearing children with care and compassion, providing for their needs, and offering love and discipline as the situation requires.
In turn, adult children are instructed to care for their parents when they reach the state of old age or illness. They are to be treated kindly and revered regardless of their mental, emotional, or physical condition.
In today’s Gospel from Matthew (Mt. 2:13-15, 19-23) we see Joseph fulfilling his parental responsibilities as prescribed by Sirach. Having received a warning in a dream that his family is in danger, Joseph shoulders the burden of whisking them away to safety in a foreign country. When the situation resolves he once again undertakes a journey to settle them in a comfortable and quiet environment where they can be secure and raise the child as God intends.
We can see how this dynamic of family care and concern continues as Jesus grows and matures into adulthood. As a twelve-year old child, Jesus becomes separated from Mary and Joseph during the crowded Feast of Passover in Jerusalem. They fearfully and diligently search for him as any parents would for their lost child.
When they find him in the Temple speaking with the Jewish scribes, they reprimand him, again as any parent would. We are told that, after the incident, Jesus returns to Nazareth with his family where he was obedient to them.
Later, as an adult, we once again see interactions between Mary and Jesus where he fulfills the role of a child charged to honor and revere his mother. The first instance occurs at the Wedding at Cana where Jesus saves a couple from embarrassment when the wine runs short at their wedding. Although he feels this is not the proper time to begin his ministry, his obeys his mother’s wishes and comes to the aid of the bridegroom by turning water into wine.
Later at a much more dire event, we find Mary standing at the foot of the cross. We assume she has been widowed because we hear nothing further about Joseph since the childhood of Jesus. With the death of her only son, Mary faces the prospect of widowhood with no male heir to give her a legitimate place in her community. She stands to become one the lowest members of a Jewish patriarchal society.
Yet, even as he suffers and faces certain death on the cross, Jesus respects his role as child to care for his aging parent. He entrusts Mary to the care of his close friend, the beloved disciple John. Jesus provides for Mary’s well-being just as his father Joseph had done when he was a young boy.
Family dynamics can be very stressful in our modern society where families now come in many shapes and sizes. Oftentimes both parents are forced to work in order to make ends meet. Many families are also now single-parent homes, or homes where children are raised by grandparents or other relatives for a variety of reasons.
In these instances, it can become easy to fall short of the care and concern for one’s family members dictated by Sirach and demonstrated by Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Yet we take heart in the fact that the grace of the Holy Family can bring holiness into our own homes if we but turn to God through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.
